Barefoot and Powerful-A Walk With DeAnne Part 3

Discovering Strength through Life 

Barefoot and Powerful

-A Barefoot Walk with DeAnne        Part Three

Humbled and at the same time feeling very powerful, DeAnne stands barefoot in Chartres Cathedral in France after walking barefoot on the same paths as Mary Magdalene.on

Spiritual Leader DeAnne Wolfgram gives us some perspective. 

This publication is part of an ongoing series called Barefoot and Powerful, where we explore how being barefoot is empowering to women and we find it can be to all who are open to her approach.

"My first barefoot pilgrimage moment came in the crypt of Mary Magdalene in St. Maxim Basilica.  

I had some precious time alone beneath the church gazing upon her skull held in the golden reliquary and surrounded by two sarcophagi. As I sat on the steps of the crypt gazing at her, 

"I remembered [my friend] Melynnda’s advice and removed my sandals. 

"The cold stone awakened my senses and I felt awash in divine feminine devotion for this woman who had lived through so very much and yet carved such a path for others.

Through my very soles, I felt this soulful moment of reverence and awareness. Like the Christina Perri song “Thousand Years” sings, She ‘has died every day waiting for’ us. I had the realization that we are the women and men of right now living in this extraordinary time on earth. We are the ones we have waited for and Love is the absolute guiding force for us all. 

"Following my moment of communing with Mary Magdalene in her crypt, I quietly placed my shoes back on my feet.  Both in shoes and barefoot I would walk where her own steps had been along the Royal Road to her cavern cathedral in St. Baum, beside the Mediterranean Sea where she came ashore at Stes Maries-de-la-Mer and elsewhere. 

I was not necessarily a Magdalene devotee though I did and still do feel deep reverence. The awakening of Divine Feminine truth had pulled me there. What called me to Sacred France was an awareness of the renewal of the Divine Feminine and the truth of the Sacred Union of Beloved Love. Each day of walking in Magdalene’s footsteps across southern France was a further awakening to my own Divine Feminine essence and to deep stirrings of knowings that I am only now beginning to be able to articulate.

"Yes, the advice to walk barefoot when I could was important. It connected me to these ancient places in a very sensual, sacred personal way and grounded me in the present while simultaneously feeling a timeless connection experience as well.  

Despite my best intentions, the immersion in all these new potent places and the energy of the people in our remarkable Sacred France tour group were wondrously overwhelming.

The very next day I hiked to the top of the ancient Cathar ruins in the mountains of Montsegur in flip flops with walking sticks. The day was an illuminated journey as the sunlight cascaded down lighting our path. In the center of the ruined fortress,

"I removed my shoes and felt the energies of this timeless place devoted to The Way of Love.  

As my toes lifted the dirt and tickled the grass, I watched members of our travel family filled with the peaceful loving presence of this place and we marveled at its mysteries.  

"Strangely, I did not feel the heaviness of the hundreds of lives that where lost as the Cathar people had walked to their deaths in the fires at the base of this very mountain in 1244 for refusing to recant their faith. What I did feel through my heart and the soles of my feet was a sense of return and renewal. Many were gathered that felt a similar ancient stirring. It was the call to walk the path of life in Love.

From that day at Montsegur on and for the next two weeks as I walked through Europe, I had a wrapped ankle. I removed the wrapping to walk completely barefoot on the magnificent ancient labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral, home of sacred mystery schools and a depth of beautiful and sometimes controversial history.

"Invoking prayer and an open heart, I entered the labyrinth barefoot and trusting. I knew I would be guided just as I had been in extraordinary ways throughout this journey. The labyrinth is truly a metaphor for our walk of life with all its circuitous turns that weave us in wondrous ways.  This next passage is one that I wrote and shared on the first anniversary of my sacred walk."

"IT'S ALL SACRED......" Join us tomorrow to read what DeAnne had to say about this.....

Blessings!